Joski1624

Not sure how many saw the details in the other Cleveland market threads, but I have recently started finding 1x800 showing up in the Youngstown IBEZ exclusion zone. The now two sites that I've found so far are in testing mode and were only found because I'm using a PRL that scans for 1x800 testing SIDs which are not normally built into the standard PRL.

Akron is also an IBEZ exclusion area and could very well have 800 test sites active too.

And Sprint's acquiring another company that is actually using compatible technology, but we all knew that already. I'm looking foreward to the better network the next time I visit nTelos land, and giving Shentel the task of management and upgrades is a good move too They're one of the few really bright spots of the NV 1 upgrades

I'll chime in FWIW. I admit that I too was disappointed that CA and B41 2nd carrier has yet to make a splash here. I can most assuredly say that Sprint hasn't completely forgotten Cleveland.

Cleveland covers the most Ohio counties of any of the Ohio markets. Cincinnati is larger geographically, though covers parts of KY and IN. Also, outside of Cuyahoga County, B41 for the most part isn't cutting it in other urban areas, so what I and others have found is that Sprint is adding sites at a more rapid pace to improve density. I believe this is a more pressing issue. It's been a challenge for me to keep up lately. There have been new sites that have come online within the past month or two that we're still trying to find. They've been showing up in CDMA and LTE logs, so we at least know of a general area.

I'd be delighted if others would be willing to pitch in and help track the progress in our market. There's a small handfull that are contributing field data, and more would be helpful, especially now. I am very thankful for those who are currently helping. A lot of mysteries have been solved so far with user field data from log files, and there's more work to do in that realm.

Akron, OH

http://s4gru.com/index.php?/topic/6041-cleveland-market-mapspreadsheet/?p=433428

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[is now a good time to put in a plug again for site_latitude & site_longitude so we can find small cells and have accurate neighbor info? ]

Found a few new sites over the last couple of weeks in my market including small cells, so this would be very helpful. I'd prefer not to have to opt out of accurate neighbors for the national db, but it's quite a trade off with losing location information of new and sometimes unknown to anyone sites (I know, I want my cake and eat it too) .

It's supposed to, but Sprint missed a few Clear sites in Cleveland if you're wondering about that market specifically, and I endorse dkyeager's statement too

And the previous reply just showed up for me after I posted :/ Anyway, I was going to add that I've found the opposite to also be true where Spark coverage is overlaid where coverage does not exist either. I've found those ones to mostly be mystical Sprint B41 in rural areas.

I was under the impression that Sprint was going to migrate WiMAX users to LTE by providing another compatible device free of charge, or at least cheaply; I guess I was wrong.

I think one needs at least a triband device too in order to get 800. I don't know if an iPhone 5S meets that criteria or not. Your location says you're in Seattle which is within the Canadian IBEZ too. I also reside in an IBEZ affected market and 800 of any flavor has only been found at sites at the southeastern fringes of my market which is Cleveland. It was briefly turned on at 800 accepted sites inside the IBEZ zone here, but hasn't been found since in over a year.

If you weren't roaming, then you were on Sprint. I don't believe there is any on-network roaming agreements with anyone in northern Ohio. Your best option may be to check Sprint's coverage maps.

It'll be interesting how this holds up to the FCC's net neutrality rules, though I am in favor of a cap for video applications. I think it could be a little better than 600kbps

Unfortunately, still no sign of it within IBEZ from what I've found

I can't complain about coverage in n-telos land . It is West Virginia afterall with rugged terrain and a sparse population . And even Verizon has gaping holes in West Virginia not to mention the radio quiet zone that affects all carriers . I think this buyout can be a good thing, especially since Shentel has a reputation for rolling out NV quite seemlessly.

Also, Old Brooklyn isn't a very good area for Sprint in my experience... I had a lot of in-building roaming when I was visiting a buddy of mine last week . Hopefully that gets Sprint's attention and they'll hopefully improve coverage one day...800MHz will help once it's deployed.

Foliage also attenuates signals...The leaves on the trees really sprouted with last spell of hot weather we had about 2 weeks ago.

In the map, why only Washington marked as border region for Canadian border?

I'm pretty sure that's a map of states who have not completed rebranding of 800 MHz.  The new quarterly report on 800ta.org came out in March, so you could at least find some more current information as of 12/31/2014.  There are many progress maps in the report that can probably give you a better idea of progress than what is in the first post of this thread.  Ohio is indicated as being rebranded, but I saw there was a holdout on one of the counties (Public Service) near Toledo who had an extension until 3/31/2015.  I would love to get my hands on documentation of the Canadian side rebranding of 800MHz.  At least you folks in CA have a glimpse of what the heck is holding things up...I haven't found anyone around here who has any idea as to why IBEZ area are still...well IBEZed .  It would seem kind of ridiculous (but not out of the realm of possibility) if Washington was holding up the entire border area all the way to the Atlantic, so I would imagine that things in Canada are further behind than in the US.

  I went through some of the Industry Canada database for SW Ontario SMR licensees about 6 months ago and there seemed to be indication that the government had been in the progress of clearing space at the lower chunk of 800 (as in not issuing or renewing any licenses in that chunk spectrum for the last couple years), but it was a tremendous pain to find any kind of pattern.

Actually, I believe while Spark coverage is still exaggerated in the Cleveland market although more accurate now, B25 has been overcorrected in a lot of cases.

No at least not in pittsburgh market the same pci is shared between all the band. No way to tell with just a pci.

Now I know that the Toledo market isn't as strange as I thought as it also uses the same PCIs on all 3 bands...You folks have it ridiculously easy to accurately track PCIs ;-)

Nothing out of the ordinary ...just the usual spots for me that are always terrible and frequently drop out. Now that my phone almost never roams because of Sprint's network tinkering lately, I have more areas where I can't use the phone. And I typically have over 50% of the time without a signal at work because the Sprint signal is marginally stronger enough to prevent roaming and a usable network experience for me

And looks like 800's starting... 2 800 CDMA updates in market, one in the metro area.

I'm not holding my breath yet.

If I recall, TAC is also a parameter that can be used for neighbor cells. I've found that neighbor cells that also have a different TAC from my currently connected site don't always spit out the site notes...that and null entries cause similar issues too

Current Totals from 5/28/13 - 12/3/14

 

205 new sites

102 iDEN conversions

37 new DAS sites

0 Clearwire conversions

0 Clearwire B41 only conversions

1 new COW/NASCOW

1 new Pico Cell site

30 deactivations

 

For a net total of 316 new sites.

 

Feel free to check my math, but it appears that we have passed the 100 iDEN conversions mark! Hopefully they continue, there are many that would still make great infill sites. Additionally if my memory serves me correctly about a 1000 sites that served areas where iDEN was the only Sprint service offered, maybe we will start to see more of these sites converted as well...

I'm sure there's more than the now 106 documented iDEN conversions. There's at least 3 in my market alone that have been found by users that are, AFAIK, not counted in the official numbers yet.

Because they need the spectrum. Not now but soon. They would also do it to stick it to Dish.

I still say that there still needs to be a stronger emphasis on utilizing existing spectrum more efficiently and finding ways to increase capacity by way of new RF technologies. There isn't an infinite amount of RF spectrum out there, and only so much spectrum can be yanked from other services.

Ah, it's just a little snow

At any rate, I find it encouraging. I recently made provisions in the spreadsheets to better track 1x800 at individual sites using BIDs to narrow it down. Sprint recently implemented sector offsets, so the BSL in 1x mode on signal check pro is wrong, but the BID (hexidecimal calculation) stays almost the same with all sectors (like GCIs in LTE mode). I have a lot of my CDMA logs to go through that have the real site coordinates and corresponding BID. That's what I will use to populate the spreadsheet and it will make things all the way around easier for everyone.

I would expect a new wave coming soon - according to the FCC's license site, looks like 800 MHz licenses become available for Sprint's use Feb 10 of this year... assuming I'm reading this right, that is... and then I might actually be able to get good 1X and LTE signal in building, fingers crossed.

 

http://wireless2.fcc.gov/reband800/search_result_display.htm?callsign=&public_safety_region=&vacated_date_from=&vacated_date_to=&frequency_assigned_e=&frequency_assigned=&frequency_upper_band=&frequency_search=A&match_type=A&display_rows=10&sorted_by=callsign&sort_order=ASC&rec_count=8226&start=41&end=50&process_id=60553&curPage=5&reqPage=1

Awesome find...my guess is that it is for 1X deployment...something that is really needed.  More spectrum still needs to be cleared on the Canadian side to make LTE available.